by Maria Padian
Please please please please.
“Mrs. Plourde?” he said. Her eyes opened immediately. She nodded. He sat in an adjacent chair.
Oh Christ. He’s sitting. That’s not good. He’s breaking the news to her. Please! Please!
“Your son is in recovery right now. We’ve stabilized him.…”
I missed much of what followed. Partly because Mrs. Plourde broke into hysterical weeping and the doctor, this young-looking guy who was clearly better at setting bones than comforting emotional mothers, eventually had to stop speaking because she couldn’t hear him anyway.
Alive. That’s all my brain could process. It didn’t matter how alive, or what he was left with. He was still with us.
Thank you.
When she calmed down, my dad repeated for Mrs. Plourde everything she’d missed, translating some of the medical jargon for her. He soothed her when fresh sobs broke out, the tears of relief giving way to horror when she realized just how bad off he was.
Donnie had broken bones in seven places. Three breaks were compound, with the bone coming through the skin. The worst was his right leg, and that was the one that had kept him in surgery so long. He would probably be able to keep the leg, the doc said, but even then it would be a while before he’d walk on it again. He’d broken a couple ribs, but as far as they could tell at that point, there was no other internal damage.
The biggest question, he said, was Donnie’s brain. He hadn’t cracked his skull, but until he regained consciousness they wouldn’t know for sure what damage he’d done to his brain.
That was when I had to turn my own brain off and stop imagining. Because while it was hard to imagine him limping or scarred for the rest of his life, it was impossible to think of him as … not Donnie. I couldn’t go there.
“Can I see him?” Mrs. Plourde asked at last. The doctor nodded, and she rose unsteadily to her feet. My dad had one arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“Tom, wait out here,” he said. “After Ruth has seen Don I’ll come back out for you.” He didn’t wait for a reply; it wasn’t a question. They walked slowly from the waiting room and turned right toward the elevators.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
My throat was dry. I had the sort of headache you get from clenching your jaw for hours. A Poland Spring cooler at the other end of the room, near the windows, caught my eye, and I got up and filled a paper cone with icy water. I stared out the window as I drank. The sun was rising and the lights of the parking lot had just begun to dim. The clock on the waiting room wall said 5:45. A very early morning for Tom Bouchard. Or was it a very late night?
I crushed the empty cone, tossed it in the trash, and looked up as Jake Farwell walked hesitantly into the waiting room.
“Jake!” I called out.
He looked relieved when he saw me. He took long, fast steps in my direction.
“Kind of early for you, man, don’t you think?” I said. Okay, so it probably wasn’t fair to joke around with Jake right then, who looked sick with worry. I put one hand on his arm.
“He just got out of surgery and his mom is with him. He’s pretty banged up, but the doc says he’ll live.” The tension in Jake’s face melted into relief. He looked like he might cry, actually. Hell, I knew the feeling. I threw my arms around his shoulders, and we did the man hug thing. We held on for a lot longer than the usual man hug thing.
When Jake broke away, he was wiping his eyes.
“Morin texted. It woke me up; I had left the phone on. What happened?”
“Seriously? Did he manage to tell you he almost killed Don?” I said angrily.
Just then Lila walked in. She ran over when she spotted us.
“Oh my God, do you guys know how Donnie is?” she exclaimed tearfully. She looked like she just rolled out of bed. Probably had. High school peeps don’t do 5:45 a.m. unless they’ve got ice hockey practice.
“Morin texted you, too?” I said.
“He’s texted everyone,” she said.
“Are you shittin’ me?” I exclaimed.
“Tom. Chill,” Jake said. “The guy feels terrible. He’s telling everybody so that you’re not here alone. And besides, no one holds a gun to Don’s head and forces him to do stupid shit. This stuff is usually his idea, and it’s just random George didn’t get hurt much.”
I wasn’t quite ready to let George Morin off the hook, but before I could say anything else, I saw her. Down the hall, talking to someone at the emergency registration desk. She was all bundled up in a coat I didn’t recognize, but I did recognize the little spiky-heeled boots. “Be back in a minute,” I said to Jake and Lila, and walked toward her.
“Myla,” I said, and she turned. Her eyes widened.
“What are you doing here?” she said at the same moment that I said, “How did you find out?”
“Excuse me,” she said to the woman at the desk. “I’ll be right back.” She pulled me down the hall and turned left into a little waiting alcove. There were chairs, some magazines.
“You first,” I told her.
“Find out what?” she asked instead.
“About Donnie,” I replied.
She looked confused.
“What? I don’t know anything about Donnie.”
“There’s been an awful accident,” I began. Then, dammit, I couldn’t believe it. After holding it together for, what? Hours? Tears. I was blubbering like a baby, in front of this girl who I’d been trying to convince that I was mature. Great. Epic fail once again, Bouchard.
But then her shoulders dropped, and she looked so sorry. I felt her arms around my back, and I buried my face in her neck, and … it was okay. It was okay to feel really, really sad. And somehow we ended up sitting, away from the main entrance and people walking in and out, and Myla listened.
When I was done, she was just quiet, because what could she say, really? Then something occurred to me.
“Wait. If you didn’t know about Don, what are you doing here?”
“I’m with Samira,” she said simply. “They still haven’t heard from Saeed.”
This confused me.
“You’re looking for him at the hospital?” I said.
She shrugged.
“Actually, it’s the first place I thought of,” she said. “To check here and see if someone matching his description was in an accident.”
I shook my head.
“Myla, you are probably the nicest, most generous person in the world. But why are you doing this? For God’s sake, the cops know all the accidents. Make the call!”
She frowned and said in a low voice, “Tom, there’s definitely some stuff going on that I don’t really get. But I do know this: the police are a last resort to these people. They don’t want any trouble, and their experience is that guys who carry guns are not necessarily out to help you.”
“So you’re turning yourself into their personal CSI: Enniston?” I said. “C’mon, College. Not practical. Or even very helpful.”
“I know,” she sighed. “But it’s not like this was far, you know? You can practically see my dorm from this place. I’ve told them if Saeed doesn’t turn up by lunchtime, somebody needs to call the police.”
“Okay,” I said. She glanced back at the registration desk.
“I never got a chance to talk to that woman,” she said. “Wait here?”
I nodded, and Myla returned to the counter where I found her. I leaned back in my chair, rotated my head on my neck, and felt stiff ligaments crack. Man, I was tired. My eyes settled on a figure standing alone, leaning against the wall no more than a dozen feet away from me. I don’t know how I missed her, standing there in her blue hijab with the bomber jacket over it, but Samira had been in the alcove, too. Waiting for Myla. I walked over to her.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi, Tommy,” she said quietly. We stood there awkwardly.
“I heard you and Myla,” she finally said. “I’m sorry about your friend. Is he going to be fine?”
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I shrugged.
“Depends on how you define fine, I suppose. But he’s alive, and that’s what counts, right?”
“Where there is life, there is hope,” she said seriously. Which was a cliché, but I knew she meant it. It’s the funniest thing: all the Somali kids I friend on Facebook are always posting that sort of little wise saying. Like the plaques on the walls of that Somali restaurant. I mean, it’s all good, wholesome stuff. It’s just this … way … they have.
I finally thought of something to say.
“You know, your brother? He’s a smart guy. I’m sure he’s going to be okay.”
Samira glanced away. A thin line formed between her eyes. She stared with great concentration down the hall where Myla had gone.
“I mean, he didn’t survive civil war in Africa and cross an ocean only to get screwed up in Enniston, Maine, you know?” I said, attempting to lighten her mood. But then I saw her lower lip quiver. Tears spilled from her eyes, tracing down her cheeks in two lines she didn’t bother to wipe.
“He has been so upset, Tom,” she said. “About the soccer.”
“We’re all upset,” I told her. “But it’ll work out. Coach is on it.”
“It is so unfair,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “It makes him angry. And I worry … that he is angry.”
That surprised me. The Saeed I knew was always smiling.
“I’ve never seen your brother mad,” I said.
“Saeed can be angry,” she replied. Her voice cracked.
Maybe it was all the hugging and the crying and the emotion I’d been swimming in for the past few hours that explains what happened next. Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Temporary insanity. Or maybe I just wanted to be nice. Whatever. I didn’t think. I just did. So I put my arms around her and gave her a big hug.
Samira smelled like perfume. Not like my mom’s. More like the stuff at the natural foods store. So maybe that’s not perfume at all, maybe it’s more like … incense? At any rate, it wasn’t a girl smell I was used to. Cherisse always smelled like chewing gum. Myla smells like Altoids and her shampoo. Mrs. Plourde smells like cigarettes. Anyway, just something I noticed, no big deal …
She stiffened. Her arms remained firmly at her sides, I heard a soft intake of surprised breath, and I realized: I’d crossed the line.
Somali girls is different, I heard in my head. I hadn’t known what Saeed meant when he said that, but just then, at that moment, I stepped closer to understanding. I released her, and we both moved away from each other. I looked at her, apology at the ready, but something stopped me. She stared over my shoulder with this frozen, frightened gaze. I turned.
Cherisse and Lila stood not three feet away from us. They looked pretty funny, actually, each of them with their mouths open in these little round O’s. Like a cartoon, or something out of a really bad sitcom.
But I knew that what they’d seen and what they thought were anything but funny.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Aunt Maddie tells this story about a friend of hers who works as a physician assistant at a clinic in Portland.
She treats a lot of refugee and immigrant people, and one day she was assigned this really difficult patient no one else could deal with. He was a Muslim guy, African, and barely spoke English. He was experiencing some serious symptoms, but because of the language barrier, plus he seemed emotionally unbalanced, no one could work with him. He would get belligerent when people didn’t understand him. He would storm out of appointments, then return unexpectedly and demand to be seen. If he was given orders or a prescription, he’d rarely follow the advice or take the medicine. Some at the clinic thought he was bipolar. Maddie’s friend thought his behavior was understandable for a traumatized, displaced person.
For some reason, the two of them hit it off. It took a while, but he trusted her, and slowly she began to get correct information out of him, and she could prescribe the right treatments for him. He began to open up to her, tell her things about his past and his family. He came to the clinic a lot, sometimes just to ask her questions that had nothing to do with his health.
One day, after a good visit, she made a mistake. As they said goodbye, she impulsively threw her arms around him and gave him a brief, friendly hug. Like you’d hug a brother. Or a friend. She saw his eyes cloud over. Saw the pleasant, easy expression on his face change. He left, abruptly, and never came back. To this day she has no idea how he’s getting his meds, or whether a doctor sees him. Others report seeing him around Portland, but no one really knows how he’s doing.
For the friend, it was like he disappeared.
“The rules are complicated,” Maddie said. “They always come back to the same thing: it depends. Is it against Islam to touch a woman who is not a family member, or is it just a cultural taboo? Depends on who you ask or what country you’re from. Should a Muslim girl cover up or not? Depends on how strict her family is. Do you have to pray at certain times each day, or can you save it up until after school? Depends.”
Myla and I would try to get straight answers out of Samira. One day, while Abdi colored, we asked what she would do when she graduated in a couple years. Myla had wanted an answer to the handshake question.
“It is not all right for skin to touch skin,” Samira explained.
“Okay,” Myla said thoughtfully. “I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here. In America, shaking hands is a sign of respect. It’s a good thing. So aren’t you disrespecting the principal and the whole school, basically, by refusing to shake?”
“So a compromise is made,” Samira said simply. “You shake the hand with the hijab covering it. You shake, but skin does not touch skin.”
“Is that what you’ll do?” Myla asked.
“I don’t know,” Samira sighed. “Probably.”
Here’s the thing: she was trying to figure out the new rules as well. Trying to figure out what was religion and what was culture. Haram versus halal. In a strange new world where she was trying to fit in as a new American, but also as a good Muslim. Meanwhile, all the Somali boys around her were sure as hell touching skin. Dressing like rappers, playing sports, hanging out. Like Ibrahim, on my team? Last summer he went to Upward Bound at some college in Massachusetts, and all over his Facebook page he posted pictures of himself with other kids, white girls in skimpy T-shirts included, smiling at the camera with their arms around each other.
The “rules” are freakin’ confusing. So did I screw up, like Aunt Maddie’s friend? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not like I was making a move on Samira. So I had to trust that we’d get past it.
The big question was: would we get past Cherisse?
In the hospital, there was this slow-motion stupid second where the four of us just stood there looking at each other. Then Samira came to life. She fled down the hall toward Myla.
“Yeah, you run, bitch,” Cherisse seethed.
I took one step toward her.
“That was not what it looked like,” I said.
She laughed.
“Things are always what they look like,” she retorted. “You surprise me, Tom. I didn’t know you liked chocolate.” The anger I felt toward her right then was so intense I could practically hear it. Like waves crashing, and someone turning up the volume.
“No wonder you wouldn’t tell anybody who your new girlfriend was,” she continued.
I got up in her face.
“You are a stupid bitch. And no one—no one—wants you here.”
Genuine surprise flickered across her eyes. Then they narrowed. But before Cherisse spoke again and made me do something I’d regret, I quick-stepped away from her. I headed toward the waiting room, the registration desk. At the end of the hall, I spotted more kids from school. Word had spread about Don, and the tribe was gathering.
I could also see Myla and Samira, with Samira speaking urgently to her and pulling her by the arm toward the exit. Myla caught sight of me and stopped. Yanked her arm away, actually. Samira ran from the building.
“Tom, I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go,” Myla said as I approached. “She’s, like, hysterical to get out of here for some reason.”
Get her out, fast, I managed to not say.
“Saeed?”
She shook her head.
“Not here. We’re going to drive to the housing project where a few of his friends live. See if they know anything. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I’m not staying with you.” She slipped her arms around my waist and squeezed. The top of her head brushed my chin.
“It’s okay. Really, I’m fine,” I said. We were standing just outside the waiting room, and I caught the eyes of a couple of my classmates who had just arrived. I read it in their expressions as they watched this little interchange: What? I stepped back. “Call me as soon as you hear something, okay?”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed me.
“You too,” she said. Then she headed out to the parking lot and Samira.
Someone came up behind me. Jake.
“You’re the only guy I know, Tom, who can meet girls at a hospital,” he said.
Hours passed. Dad and I waited for Mrs. Plourde’s sister to arrive from Thomaston because Dad didn’t want to leave her alone. People came and went, most notably Cherisse, who, shortly after Myla beat it out of there, stormed through the exit door, texting all the way. Lila scurried after her like an indignant lady-in-waiting. In the back of my mind warning sirens sounded, but I was too dog-tired to respond and too relieved to see her go.
At some point my father took me in to see Don.
It was bad.
First thought that popped into my head when I walked into his room: It’s not him. He was that unrecognizable. That wrapped. Not just the one busted operated-on leg, but his chest, wound tight (the broken ribs), and his head and face mostly covered. The bits of him that were exposed were swollen and purple from bruising, and tubes snaked out of more places on him than I cared to count.
